Is our life set out or is it ramdon?

Answer 1

Both.
Genetically set out.
Judgmentally random.

Answer 2

Really a disturbing question if one thinks about it a bit more deeply...
First of all, on lower (particle) levels things ARE random, and AFAIK nobody (no SERIOUS physicist, I mean) has found a way to overcome that. If yes, then please tell me, I might not be very up-to-date in quantum physics :)

Moving some levels of organisation higher, at the DNA-molecular level some things are set out. These are actually nothing more than the proteins you can synthesise - which then, by largely unknown ways, produce your eye colour, height, intelligence, number of fingers/toes etc. However, what your DNA contains is largely the result of billions of years of random mutation... ;)

And another however, as soon as you begin your life (which is, I assume, as soon as a fertilised egg begins dividing and forming an embryo), there come environmental effects (to say a not too subtle example, the drug Thalidomide taken by pregnant mothers resulted in the birth of many deformed babies from the late fifties), which are, well, if not random, often chaotic enough to consider them random.

Yet another however, even BEFORE your father's sperm and mother's egg ever meet: when sex cells are formed, they undergo meiotic division, which involves certain random procedures: 1) homologous chromosome pairs (the Wikipedia article is good enough for a definition) exchange genes randomly, and 2) homologous pairs are separated randomly when the cell divides, i.e. you can't tell in advance which member of each pair goes to which daughter cell.

And finally comes the question of free will. Whether the factors listed above, genes and environment (including upbringing and education), determine our decisions, or are we left a real choice. In a ToK homework question I read a definition of free will something like "you could have done otherwise". The task was to reflect on free will in the above sense, and I thought (and still think) that you can't prove whether you could. The chance of getting into the exact same situation twice is very small, in fact zero, considering that by the second time you have more memories, including those of the first occasion, that can determine your decision in another way...

In conclusion, I tend to say that life is neither fully set out (at least not on a level we can fully observe and understand) nor completely random, but chaotic enough to appear random. I certainly don't believe in any PURPOSE behind it - though that's completely personal belief and not supported by the sort of knowledge/reason that stand behind the other arguments!

P.S.: I'm an atheist, so I tried to approach the question from a more rational point of view... not intending to hurt anyone's religious feelings. That's what my humble mortal mind can think of how life works, and nothing more.

Answer 3

It Is Organised Chaos With A Purpose;
The Great Organising Force Is Commonly Reffered To As God.
That Force Created Everything In Our Universe.
Only Some People Are Afraid To Admit That.

Answer 4

Interesting question...I would have to say set out and possibly cause an arguement amongst my fellow peers. The reason I say set out is because there are primarily two parts to the way we are...first is interwoven in our genetics and the second our environment. The genetics side is obviously predetermined to an extent (excusing all the variations there are...and alot there is) as your identity will either come from a paternal, maternal or both sources (talking about crossing over for the more scientific minded).

The environment issue is a little bit harder to accept but i feel this is also set out. We as people will only respond to a situation in a given number of ways, I think, depending on the situatuion we are in and the way we have been brought up or experiances we have had. In which case life is not random.

Alot of you may be thinking whats he talking about; 'I am going to prove him wrong and do something random'. But that will prove my point further as the people who do this random thing are those that are brought up to feel as if they should out of rebellion or to stand up to the fact that they have their life in their own control. Those that do not and think 'I aint gonna bother' are those that have been brought up with those values.

Basically, regardless of complexity there is always a pattern even in randomness....chaos thoery come to mind?

Anyway I am off to be random within reason...take care!

Answer 5

random enough to make it interesting and challenging. Example - Mr. Hawking - a mind capable of concieving things others will take years to comprehend. Yet to look at him you might think here is a person trapped by circumstances he may not surmount. Life, the ocurrance of your being upon this earth may have been random, but your existance here is not. Not set out. Make of it what you will, and do whatever you can to help those around you. That is the core of the duty a human being has to others, and all you may encounter.

Answer 6

As for my opinion, life seems like an orbit of a planet, ie. the earth. Somehow we can predit its travelling path according to things we have done, ie. interaction among people in society, or simply said as a consequence of experiences.
Somehow we won't know what would be happened to us in a near future, like next one, two or five years. Obviously the orbit itself would have an intersection or crossing on some other orbits which belong to someone else.
I would say that life is some how in random and it's set by someone and for sure, it's yourself.

Answer 7

Set out

Answer 8

Random

Answer 9

I would say life is set, but with a lot of allowances made for every decision we make. With different decisions, we can change our future each and every day of our lives.

Answer 10

There are a set amount of things that will randomly happen in our life, we all experience love, hate, illness, death, targedy, heartbreak, joy, and pain.

We don't know where, when, who, or how.